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Afghan Girl Roboticists Denied US Visas (bbc.com)
Three anonymous readers share a similar report: An all-girl team of roboticists will watch their creations compete in a US competition via Skype after being denied visas to enter the country. President Trump recently ordered a ban on travel from six Muslim-majority countries, but Afghanistan was not included on the list. Teams from Iran, Sudan and Syria -- which are on the list -- did manage to enter the country. The six-member team watched their ball-sorting robot compete in Washington DC via a video link from their hometown of Herat, in western Afghanistan. "We still don't know the reason why we were not granted visas, because other countries participating in the competition have been given visas," Fatemah Qaderyan, 14, told Reuters.
Welcome to the DeEnlightenment.
What an embarrassment this country is becoming.
Why does the fact that she's Afghani matter? Why does the fact that she's a roboticist matter?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Visitor visas are weird creatures. Even under ideal circumstances, with good jobs and excellent ties to their native country, about half of them are denied (or more) at certain embassies. It's entirely at the mercy of the consular officer, and this probably had nothing to do with the travel ban. It was probably a CO being skittish.
It is possible that the reason is unrelated to Thr Trump Ban. many times people from these particular type of shit-hole countries get a visa of one type or another and then just dissapear into an expat community.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
It matters because in Afghanistan, women risk being attacked for daring to get an education. The fact that these young women are a robotics team is an important part of the story.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Why did we not read about each case of denied Visas under Obama? They did happen.
Most likely the usual reasons: either, they didn't demonstrate that they had enough money to stay in the US, or there was doubt about their ability or desire to leave the US once granted entry. Same reason EU countries frequently deny entry.
After all, the US does seem to have difficulties removing people who overstay their visas or enter illegally.
Why does their gender matter? Quit being so sexist.
Have you been living in a basement for the past 10 years?
It matters because girls in much of Afghanistan are systematically repressed and mistreated, denied education, equal rights and privileges, etc. That an all girls team from Afghanistan is excelling in robotics is very relevant to this story.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Their gender matters because as girls from Afghanistan, they would have been able to make a pretty good case that they should be allowed to remain in the US after being admitted due to conditions for girls in Afghanistan.
So it has nothing to do with Trump's ban on those countries has it?
US immigration is a law unto itself and usually pretty arbitrary. I realise a lot of the world's problems are Trump's fault, but not all of them are.
Entry into a foreign country is not a right.
These girls did not have any of their rights violated. They applied for visas; they were declined. It happens all the time. It happens to foreigners applying for visas in the US; it happens to Americans applying for visas elsewhere.
In addition, their gender is irrelevant. This information has only been included to incite more outrage from those who feed off of left-wing identity politics.
There is no story here except for the one that professional victims and their allies are trying to create.
And wouldn't that be just terrible. God knows how our culture could possibly survive allowing a few young girls come here.
For the simple reason that Obama didn't make it a signature policy of his to create a Muslim ban. Mistakes were probably made, but since Obama didn't wade into it, there was no mess on him.
Instead, the right-wing went into hysterical frenzies over Obama criticizing the police, ATF guns, and Guantanamo. Even today, an NYPD officer was shot. Obama will likely get attacked for it, but Trump? Nope.
Just watch though, Trump will likely get flak over trying to bring a baby in the country, whose lifespan will be measured in agonizing months, and all his supporters will be ignoring how his Trumpcare cuts funds for medical care for US citizens.
The fuck is wrong with you?
Supporting young roboticists is exactly the type of thing what Slashdot is all about.
Grow up.
Really? I thought slashdot was all about typos in teh summaries and misplaced rage from people who don't read the articles.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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So the 6 month total ban Obama put in place on any visa from Iraq never happened? Oh wait, you're about as wrong as Trump is orange.
...Then I saw little Tiffany. I'm thinking, y'know, eight-year-old white girl, middle of the ghetto, bunch of monsters, this time of night with quantum physics books? She about to start some shit, Zed. She's about eight years old, those books are WAY too advanced for her. If you ask me, I'd say she's up to something...
Oh, the horror. Educated young women with interests in STEM fields. How would "Merica" ever survive such a thing?
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
It really gets tiresome repeating facts to the ignorant and shills who refuse to work with those facts.
When 90% of a the people following a particular Religion are not impacted by the travel moratorium, it is not "xenophobic" policy. Making such a claim is lazily disingenuous. "You are a racist" is not an argument. Even if it were true, the policy being debated may not be. It is failed logic called a fallacy.
Considering that the countries impacted are all either failed states or have governments who support terrorists and terrorist organizations, the policy purpose is obviously to address potential terrorism. While we may be able to argue the actual risks involved, you make that impossible with "more" ad hominem based on failed logic. "You are a racist and homophobe" is not an argument.
Lastly, Countries _ARE_ REQUIRED to control their borders. This is a well known fact and every single nation on Earth does exactly that, because without doing so you have no country. (See Tibet for an example). More lazy arguments based on faulty logic won't make that untrue. More ad homimen (you are a racist, homophobe, misogynist) is still not an argument and is a simply lazy and disingenuous. If you have doubts that countries in fact do need to control their borders, leave all your papers at home and try to enter Mexico, or China, or Russia, or Germany, or any other place you wish. You will be begging for your papers and demanding to see the US embassy in little time. Attempting in fact to rely on the nation that you are attempting to subvert and undermine with your lazy disingenuous arguments!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
None of those things matter. Maybe her people should clean up their own country so that the new generation has better opportunities to exploit with its potential. Islam isn't so keen on girls doing intellectual work..or work of any kind, except homemaker.
You say that none of these things matter, and then proceed to say what a big deal it is for a girl in Afghanistan to be able to do robotics. You completely contradict yourself in one single paragraph.
And what opportunity have these girls missed? Oh yes, going to the United States. In this case, it is not Islam that is holding these girls back.
Please TAKE A HIKE with your cherry-picked example for bleeding hearts, state-run BBC new service.
Liberals may have had few boundaries established for them by their parents, but I'm afraid their ignorance and lack of discipline cannot be allowed to prevent our entire civilization from establishing boundaries.
And by "Liberals" I mean almost all "conservatives" as well. Our civilization is being raped from the inside.
"President Trump recently ordered a ban on travel from six Muslim-majority countries, but Afghanistan was not included on the list."
But we are going to mention it in order to stir up shit.
I can't wait for someone from Canada to be denied entry for whatever reason and then some stupid fucker mention the Ban while explaining that Canada wasn't part of it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Being an intelligent (young) woman is most decidedly a threat.
Yes, sadly, a threat to overstay their visas. Sadly, that is one of the criteria that has been historically used by bureaucrats in the visa office to deny visas.
In case you haven't been involved in obtaining visas for foreigners before, this is unfortunately quite common. I've seen this many times, despite impeccable invitation letters, pre-paid round trip air tickets, evidence of foreign funds (bank accounts), evidence of strong ties to return (e.g., children, close family members), visas for young folks (12-30 years old) from many poor-er countries get routinely denied by bureaucrats in the various visa offices ostensibly for this reason.
Depending on your politics and your sympathies, you may not care about this risk, but to some of the faceless bureaucrats running the visa offices, visa overstay risk is as much of a "threat" as association with terrorists.
On the flip side, see it from their point of view in "enforcing" the laws on the books: a group of young girls with little to tie them to their home country (and who might be ostracized in their own country for being educated), want a visa to travel to the USA on limited funds. Sadly, you gotta admit that at least a yellow flag would be raised that they are at risk of overstaying their visa. Maybe you don't care if they overstay, but depending on who was reviewing their visa application, that person might happen to care enough to deny the visa and I suspect that is exactly what happened.
An Afghan all-girl robotics team was denied entry into the US for a competition. If you are thinking it was because of the travel ban, it wasn't because a) Afghanistan wasn't part of the travel ban and b) teams from countries that were part of the bad were able to secure visas.
What I thought should have been highlighted more in the submission is that girls are generally denied education in Afghanistan so this was a big achievement for them. I also thought there could have been more details around the fact that visas are denied often for all kinds of reasons. The fact that one of the girls on the team doesn't understand why they weren't allowed in is somewhat meaningless. I also thought it was kind of interesting that they could still watch their robot perform via a live feed.
I didn't get any sense that this post was anti or pro Trump, or anti or pro any issue. I read it for what it was, and I think the people who are bitching on both sides of the "argument" in this post need to see this for what it is - a very poorly written story summary.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You remember when the white non-Muslim man from Switzerland that wrote CURL was not granted a visa? That was also because of Trump's travel ban, even though he was white, non-Muslim, and from Switzerland, right?
Clearly stated in both stories is the phrase 'a country not on the (trump EO) list', but who reads the summary?
Ken
I used to help at an English school in Korea, which also put together travel packages for the teachers and students to visit the U.S. This was back in the days before the automatic 90-day travel visa for holders of S. Korean passports.
The children, males, and older (married) Korean women had no problem getting travel visas. But we had a high percentage of rejections for young females. Our theory was that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service thinks young, unmarried women want to visit the U.S. in hopes of finding a husband, and obtaining U.S. citizenship that way. So it gives them a higher bar to hurdle if they apply for a tourist visa.
Obama wasn't using Immigration policy as political capital. It was just one more thing he did because he was president.
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"Denying visas because of being afraid they won't go back is just ridiculous."
That's pretty much the point of visas in the first place - they let you screen applicants that are criminals, likely to overstay, likely to illegally work, or likely to file a refugee claim.
"There are other ways to enforce that"
When the government tries that, they get called out as inhumane monsters:
http://nacla.org/news/2015/01/...
"or just kick them out if they change their plans." ... at which point people will start calling the US a police state, since people who disappear are in an unknown location, and people get all upset when you check people's citizenship. Start checking ID, and now you're Nazi Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Why do you think there are over 10 million illegals in the US? As you say, the US has the ability to hit targets at millimetre precision thousands of miles away. It's technically possible to do mass deportations (and it wouldn't be the first time), but people dislike when the government does what it would actually take to enforce it's borders after the fact.
So, the government instead relies on regulating who can come in.